THE ANNALS AND MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. [FOURTH SERIES.] No. 94. OCTOBER 1875. XXXI. — Notes and Descriptions of some new and rare British Spiders. By the Rev. O. P. Cambridge, M.A., C.M.Z.S. [Plate VIII.] In his very able work on European Spiders, published in 1869-70, Dr. T. Thorell notices, as a remarkable fact, that the number of known spiders of Great Britain and Ireland no more than very nearly equalled those of Sweden and Nor-way — 304 species in the former and 308 in the latter countries ; and he suggests that the British Islands ought, from their more southerly position and warmer climate, to possess a richer spider-fauna than the peninsula of Sweden and Norway. Dr. Thorell, as a subsequent note attests, was only acquainted at that time with Mr. Blackwall's work on the Spiders of Great Britain and Ireland — being then unaware that since the publication of that work in 1864 numerous new species had been recorded, in various natural-history journals, as indigenous (chiefly) to England. At the present time the number of known British spiders (including those here described as new) amounts to 474 ; while every new district searched, and even some long-and well-worked localities, still reveal species not before known to be British. Not only are Devonshire and Cornwall almost an untried district, but very few spiders have yet been authen-ticated in Ireland, whose comparatively mild and humid cli-mate is probably favourable to the existence of many spiders not met with in England and Scotland. Of the few spiders Ann. &Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 4. Vol xvi. 17
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